[Hell’s Kitchen] 01-The Concept

Published by Lonnie under Developer Diary, Hell's Kitchen on October 15, 2007

This is a concept that I played with when CORE first got its start, and one that girlfriend really enjoyed the few sessions we did play. The problem was, I didn’t know where it was going, or know the little details, like how the magic worked, etc. Now is the perfect opportunity to pull together some of that info and expand on it, creating a world that everyone can enjoy.

Hell’s Kitchen is an area in New York City roughly bordered by 34th and 57th street, and 8th Avenue to the Hudson River. It was the home to the riots displayed in the movie Gangs of New York, was rumored to have more than 100,000 people that either died or were murdered within its borders. It was a rough neighborhood, during very rough times.

It’s the perfect place for a mystery/horror setting. I picture a fair amount of occult from various sources, like the different beliefs the immigrants brought with them, or the mysteries of Tesla devotees. This leaves room for all sorts of mystery-based adventures, and survival adventures within the area. There’s also the possibility for some political playing as gangs fight against gangs, and the Stars struggle just to survive. And don’t forget some good old-fashioned Illuminati-style intrigue.

Next time, we’ll look at the Attributes the setting will use, and how that can enhance the game  play.

Hello world!

Published by Lonnie under General on October 15, 2007

Well, it’s about time! We finally have a home for CORE on the web. Other than the active DLI forums. The looks are never final, but it is, at least, a start.

What will you see on this site? This site will, hopefully, become many things. First and foremost, it is a home for CORE where it is easy to find official releases, fan-created mods, settings, advice and more. I would also like to open the doors for any setting and/or mod developers to keep a blog of their activities related to CORE. If you’re interested, just contact us and we’ll get you setup.

Eventually, I’d also love to make all of the information easily browsable online, though there are already a couple of great online versions of the rules, like at d20resources.com and  wikispaces. That’s definitely for a future time, though.

CORE Screenplay Manual (or v2.0 alpha 1)

Published by Lonnie under Releases on October 15, 2007

Hey gang, here’s a copy of the first alpha release for the version 2 of the rules. This change has come about from all of the fantastic discussion in the last month or two here on the forums, and I want to take a moment and thank every one of you!

This is the “Rule Book” that was discussed. So, yes, we are in effect splitting the rules into multiple books now. This covers all of the rules needed to play the game, but does so in a non-setting specific way. Just the facts, ma’am. This means we need some volunteers to start pulling together some short settings that provide worlds that people can play in. I’ll be working on a Hell’s Kitchen setting when I can, and have asked History Dave if he would be willing to do the Ides of March (Roman Empire) setting. We’ll see if time allows for him to do this. I would love to see some others.

Some of the changes that are included in this version include (may not be all inclusive):

• Criticals
• Attributes and Skills have a range of 1-5 now to allow more drama through the die rolls
• Story Points have been expanded to a full system that combines Tokens (from Spirit of the Century), Plot Points (from Serenity) and Hero Points (from 007). Because it just made sense, they were also tied in with character growth and allow for more give and take with the players and Director.
• Expanded Rules have been removed completely from the base rules, to allow them to be added as Mods at some future point.
• Equipment rules have been removed so they can be tweaked per setting, though we might have to add this one back in - let me know what you think.
• Some of our unique rules, like Training Montages, Healing Scenes and Conflict Scope have been clarified and expanded to make them easier to understand and more prominent in the system.

It should be noted that this is not 100% representative of the final system. Certain portions are still needing to be written, but I wanted to get this out there so everyone can comment, and we can revise as needed. Here’s a list of what I can think that needs to be finished:

• The Introduction needs to be expanded to incorporate some of Glinbog’s excellent intro to roleplaying information.
• The entire Act 3: Directing needs to be written. This will include advice for Directors on creating new settings based on these rules. I’m hoping everyone who decides to build a world can help by telling me what advice they wished they would have had, or even writing it up for inclusion.
• The credits need to be added back into the system and updated so everyone gets their time in the limelight.
• The intro needs a section on Inspiration that tells a bit about the other systems that influenced our design, like the ones listed above, as well as the Shadow of Yesterday.

And, finally, here’s Alpha 01 of the Version 2.0 Screenplay Manual.
Enjoy!